Life As We Know It
by Slytherinchica08
Summary: The wizarding world is torn apart by war, yet even whilst the battle lines are being drawn, two people strike up an unlikely friendship. Could it be that a war designed to pull people apart is responsible for pushing Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger together?
1. Chapter 1

It's crazy how much can change in one day, let alone one hour, one minute, or even one second. Everything is constantly changing around us, but we don't always notice it. But this, this was something that I couldn't help but notice, no one could. Everyone's eyes were transfixed on the couple in the center of the room, it's not like Ron and Lavender were trying to be subtle about it, as they kissed passionately in front of everyone. Just like that things had changed. I could feel the sting of tears prickle at my eyes and I turned sharply from the scene, not wanting to take in another second of the horrendous display of affection, if you could call it that. It wasn't like Lavender had given Ron the time of day before his win, and would probably dump him by the wayside for the next biggest thing. I quickly fled from the Gryffindor common room and went to the one place that I knew I would be alone, the room of requirement.

I wasn't even sure what Ron saw in Lavender. As her roommate, I had learned throughout the years that Lavender was what one would consider a mess. Not just in the way she kept her clothes, in what couldn't even be considered as an organized mess, but also in her life. Just the fact that her favorite class was Divination spoke volumes about her. Of course she would enjoy a class that didn't mean anything in life and fell for the sporadic words, or prophesies as she liked to call them, of Professor Trewlany. Lavender may be a pretty girl but I was sure that she wasn't worth the headache that she would soon become.

The castle was cold, as could only be expected of November, and I almost wished that I had stayed in the Gryffindor common room where the giant fireplace had been blazing. Or at the very least, I wished that I had grabbed a robe to keep me warm. I wiped at the tears that were beginning to fall, trying to convince myself that I was being silly; there was no reason to cry or be upset at Ron's actions. After all, it wasn't like I had any claim over him, even if I had once thought that something would become of us. But it didn't seem to matter how much I told myself this, as my tears continued to betray me. It may have been two years since the Yule Ball, but there was still a part of me that hoped that Ron would buck up the courage and ask me out. Maybe I had read too much into the situation, or maybe he did like me. Either way, it didn't matter now; he had Lavender Brown to keep him busy.

By the time I made it to the room of requirement, my tears had become a steady stream, and my nose was running just as much. I quickly paced in front of the entrance, not wanting anyone else to come across me while I was like this, and slipped inside its doors once they appeared. The room was unlit and empty, just the way that I wanted it to be. Of course the room knew exactly what I wanted, that was why it was called the room of requirement, whatever you required it would become. And I had just wanted a place of solitude, somewhere that I could be alone in my misery.

Alone, I thought as I wandered around the room, my hand dragging across the rough stone walls. Was I destined to always be alone? No one ever quite understood me and my passion for knowledge. Most of the time, I was mocked. Snickers behind my back as I raised my hand to answer a question in class, or sighs as I was once more praised in class. I had pushed them all behind me and kept on, knowing that I would have a better life than them. But would I really? Would any of this be worth it if there wasn't anyone to share in my passion with? Books and cleverness was one thing, but in the end, that's all that they were, just a thing that held no meaning. There was no companionship in them, no comfort, just words.

A sound, like someone shuffling their feet, broke me out of my thoughts. My head darted around the room, looking for the source of the noise, but I found none. The room was as empty as it had been when I entered it, which meant only one thing. Maybe the room hadn't been as empty as I'd thought.

"Hello," I called out.

Nothing, the room as eerily quiet. I continued walking, headed in the direction I had thought that I had heard the noise come from. At first, there was nothing but the sound of my shoes clicking on the stone floor. But just when I was about to give up and resolve that the noise had probably originated from me, I heard it again.

"Listen, I know you're there. Just reveal yourself now, or I'll do it myself," I said, grabbing for my wand.

Still nothing happened. I raised my wand up, the spell on the tip of my tongue when another noise distracted me. This one however, came from the doorway. I lowered my wand back down to my side and watched as the door slid open to reveal the very couple that I had come here to escape. Lavender clung to Ron's arm as she giggled at something he had just said, but I didn't hear it. I watched as they began kissing feverishly, their hands both wandering each other's bodies, as they fumbled the rest of their way into the room. What were they doing here? This was supposed to be my refuge from them, a place where I didn't have to witness whatever it was that they were. How could he bring her here?

Even worse were the thoughts of wanting to be Lavender that entered my head as I watched them. For just a split second, I let my mind wander and wonder what it would be like to be in her place. To know how it felt to have a guy pushed up against me, hands roaming my body, and tongue seeking dominance against my own. Can you really feel the heat of a man's hand through your clothes? Or was that just a wives tale that each person imagined merely because they knew that his hand was there? My face flushed a light pink color, and I shook myself from my thoughts.

They still didn't seem to notice me in the room and I cleared my throat to let them know that they weren't as alone as they thought they were. I didn't want to wait any longer to get their attention, in case they started taking each other's clothes off, and I was already scarred enough. Lavender jumped back from Ron, her face flushed, and caught sight of me. I had to give her credit, at first she seemed really embarrassed to be caught in the position she had just been in with Ron, but I knew that she was probably anything but embarrassed. She was probably gloating that she got to shove her relationship with Ron in my face for a second time this evening.

Ron finally looked at me, and I glared at him; the scene of Lavender jumping onto him replayed itself in my mind. We all stood there, not saying anything. And the more that we stood there in silence, the more that it fed my pain and anger to my aching heart, and the more that I wanted to curse them. Why didn't he just say something, anything? Or better yet, why didn't they just leave? I was here first, I thought childishly, that meant I had every right to this room and they had to find another one.

"Ronny, it looks like this room is already taken," Lavender said finally.

Ron nodded his head, but made no effort to move.

"Come on Ron, let's find a different room," Lavender tried again, grabbing Ron's hand and pulling him in the direction of the door.

Ron shook her hand off and continued to look at me. His eyes held a bit of softness to them that I had never noticed before and slowly he took a step towards me. I could feel another tear escape from my eyes and stood transfixed as Ron reached his hand out towards me and then slowly took it back. That motion had hurt worse than watching him with Lavender. It was as if he was almost mine, and then he realized what he was doing, and who I was and remembered that I wasn't what he had wanted. I turned from him as the tears began flowing anew.

"Hermione," he said my name like a question.

That was all it took, I had snapped. I turned to him, anger flashing in my eyes, and raised my wand, gripping it with an intensity that scared me. I could do it, I knew I could and I could tell that Ron knew I could do it as well as he stared at my wand. Spells flashed through my mind and I gripped my wand tighter in my sweaty hand. I just had to say the spell, that's all that I had to do, and then Ron would leave, and I could be on my own again. Alone, that's all that I wanted.

I held my gaze as Ron took a step back towards the door, and then another. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't. I let my wand arm fall numbly back to my side, exhaustion set in and I didn't want to fight with Ron any more. All I wanted was for him and Lavender to go away, for the pain to go away, but I knew that they, and it, wouldn't.

"Ron," Lavender called from her place in the doorway, "just leave her."

He started to turn towards Lavender but stopped mid turn and stared in the far left corner, my right, the same area I had thought that I had heard the shuffling noise come from earlier. I chanced a glance over to the corner, hoping that whoever or whatever was hiding out would show itself. My eyes searched the dark, taking in every detail I could make out but nothing stood out. It wasn't until my head turned at the sound of the door closing, that I noticed a slight shimmer from the corner of the room.

Ron and Lavender were gone, leaving me alone in the room, or at least as alone as I had been when I first got here. Someone else had beaten me to this room and had watched me fall apart. They had seen everything that had transpired between me and Ron and I didn't like that feeling. I gripped my wand tighter in my hand and lit the tip of it, pointing the light ahead of me and took a step forward.

"Who's there?" I called out. I heard some rustling but nothing else. "Listen, I know you're there. Just show yourself to me." And then there was a light murmur, and after a moment's pause a shadowed figure appeared where the shimmer had come from. He was too far away to know who it was for sure, though I could tell one thing, he had short blonde hair. I lifted my wand higher, trying to make out who it was and gasped as he came closer, his appearance finally coming to light.

"Hello, Granger." Malfoy smirked staring at me, the glee at having witnessed my humiliation apparent on his face.


	2. Chapter 2

"Malfoy," I returned coldly. "What are you doing here?"

He didn't respond, instead, he just continued to smirk at me which slowly turned into a genuine smile at my discomfort. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, waiting for him to answer my question, but after a few moments of silence, I realized that he wasn't going to answer. My interest was piqued though, what use would this room be to Malfoy, and why had he disillusioned himself? He could have just made it clear that this room was in use the moment that I came in, but instead he hid and watched me fall apart. I didn't understand why. There had to be something going on that I couldn't place.

"What are you doing here Malfoy?" I asked again, but this time, I was given an answer.

"I should think that I should be the one asking you that question. But then again, I think it's too obvious that the poor Mudblood wasn't even good enough for the blood traitor. How does it feel to know that even he," Malfoy spat the word 'he' out as if it had left a bad taste in his mouth, "doesn't want to be seen with the likes of you."

I hated to admit that his words cut through me, something I blamed entirely on Ron, and I choked back more tears. I was not going to let him see me cry again tonight, especially not from something that he said. And it wasn't even that he had called me a Mudblood, but that his words were hitting close to home with how I felt. I felt dirty, as dirty as the name Mudblood implied. I felt rejected and humiliated and there was no worse person to witness those feelings in you then Malfoy. He would somehow find a way to humiliate me further, to manipulate this situation to help him. By tomorrow the whole school would probably know what happened in this room tonight and that mortified me.

"You're one to talk," I finally spat out, "hiding in the corner of a room, watching me."

"You wish that I had been watching you Granger."

His cockiness infuriated me and I moved closer to him. "You had been watching me," I stated though it came out more like a question.

"The events of your life are menial to me. I couldn't care less about what transpired here tonight, I have my own things to deal with and you are not among them."

I had had enough and turned to leave, but before I had gone even two steps, Malfoy was suddenly in front of me, blocking the exit. My heart began to race, as fear settled in. He had this crazy look in his eyes, and only Ron and Lavender knew that I was here, and even if they said anything, nobody knew that Malfoy was here.

"Let's get something straight Granger; you didn't see me here tonight. I'll even go as far as saying that I didn't even see what happened, nothing happened here tonight." I smiled and was about to tell him that he just admitted to watching me but was cut off. "Just leave it be. I'll let you go, just don't look back and not a mention of this to anyone. Got it Granger?"

"What are you so afraid of people finding out?" I asked him, knowing that it couldn't just be about me catching him alone in this room, there was something much deeper than that. But what could it be?

"I said leave it Granger." And that's when I noticed it, the slight pink of his grey eyes, telling me the truth. Draco Malfoy had escaped to this room for the same reasons that I had. It was a room that only a few knew about, though after tonight's events I realized that even a few was too many, and he had wanted an escape from everyone else. Because something was proving to be too much for him, though what it was I had no idea. Maybe Pansy had turned her affections somewhere else, though I doubted that a girl would be the underlying factor of his problems.

He took a step closer to me, the distance between us now only a mere arm's length away, and my heart began to race faster. What was he up to, I wondered as I searched his eyes for any meaning behind them. He didn't look away, instead, he continued to look into my own eyes, and his face softened for just a moment before the mask went back up. But that one moment was all that I had needed to see the pain and suffering that he hid behind his walls.

"Malfoy," I said softly, reaching my hand out towards him but he shrugged back.

"You better not tell anyone," he responded, his voice once more held the harsh tone I was used to, "or you'll wish that you hadn't. So, if I were you I would keep my mouth shut." At that, he turned and walked out the door, leaving me finally alone like I had wanted.

I stared at the empty space that Malfoy had previously been in. What was that? For just one moment, I had been able to see the man behind his mask, and I wondered if maybe that was who he really was. Someone who was hurting deeply and maybe just needed someone to be there for him. Was Malfoy even capable of being the guy that I had seen in here tonight, the guy that just needed a companion, someone to help and guide him along? I shook my head; I couldn't let myself think like that. I had to do as he asked, and just forget about the events that happened here tonight. I had to move on from all of this and not let him get to my head, though that was a little too late. His actions tonight were all that I could think about. He was broken, that much was apparent to me, but there was nothing that I could do about it. I was broken too, and I was the only who could pick up my pieces and put them back together, and that's all that Malfoy could do too.

I let myself collapse onto the cold stone floor and let the tears fall once again from my eyes. This time though, it wasn't just for Ron and Lavender and their budding relationship, but it was also for Malfoy. For the words that he said, the agony behind his eyes, and just how old he truly looked tonight. His face had looked well beyond his years, worry lines were etched into his forehead and his lips constantly pursed. He looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. And I knew that look well; it was the same thing that I saw every time I looked at Harry. Maybe the two of them weren't so different after all.

After a while, I found the courage to stand back up on my feet again and return to the Gryffindor common room. Curfew was coming soon, and if the events of tonight were any clue, luck was not on my side and I didn't want to push it. The walk back was long and lonesome and left me with way too much time to think about things that I didn't want to think about. Draco Malfoy was on the top of that list followed closely by Ron. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around everything that happened and Draco's mysterious appearance and threats made it that much harder to ignore. I could understand why he had sought out the Room of Requirement, after all, it was what I had done too, but what I couldn't understand was what had pushed him there? Maybe Harry was right, and he was up to something, but I still didn't believe it.

The only other possibility in my mind was one that few would ever think about, at least when concerning Draco Malfoy that is. Was there a possibility that Draco Malfoy was stressed about Voldemort, and maybe he didn't want anything to do with the Death Eater lifestyle that his parents upheld? Did he the refuge of an empty room to try and escape the Malfoy name? Was it all getting to be too much for him? I never felt that he was capable of the horrendous acts that a Death Eater submitted too, he liked to delegate those tasks to others, and besides that, the worst thing that he had done during our time at Hogwarts, was call me a Mudblood. That didn't make him a Death Eater. That just made him weak.

My thoughts were interrupted as I slipped on something and looked down to see what it was. As soon as I did, I knew exactly where I was and it brought a small smile to my face. I was on the sixth floor, just before where Professor Umbridge's office had been last year, the exact place that Fred and George had left their portable swamp. The small remainder of their swamp was a bit of a legend around Hogwarts and served as a reminder for those of us who had been here what we had gone through and that maybe sometimes, pranks were necessary.

The common room was still abuzz with activity when I finally reached it. It seemed that the lateness of the hour paid no heed to the volume of noise that barraged all of Gryffindor Tower. First years were even still among those celebrating loudly. I wondered for a moment if I should send them to bed considering their curfew had already come and gone, but for tonight, I decided to let them be. After all it was a weekend and they didn't have to worry about classes the next day. I felt strange as I watched everyone else laugh and have fun, like I didn't exactly fit in with them. My thoughts were so far away from the Gryffindor common room that I wasn't even sure they could find their way back here. They were preoccupied on a certain blonde in the dungeons, as it was, I was so preoccupied that I didn't even notice that Parvati had walked over to me.

"How is your night going Hermione?" she asked me, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"It's alright Parvati, and yours?" I politely asked back, even though really I didn't care.

She began to gush about the night's events that I had missed while I had been gone. Apparently Ron wasn't the only Weasley being kissed in the middle of the common room as Dean had kissed Ginny not too long after Ron and Lavender disappeared. Of course everyone had speculated as to where the two had gone off to, they still hadn't returned to the common room even though our curfew had already passed by. Then the conversation turned in a direction that I had not wanted it to go to, where had I run off to in the middle of the party.

"I was- I was in the library studying. I had just remembered something else that I had wanted to add to Professor Slughorn's essay about the important uses of powdered bicorn horn." It was true enough; I did want to add in another detail about the ingredient most famous for its use in the Polyjuice potion, I just hadn't actually gotten around to it yet. Parvati just looked at me as if I had sprouted a horn of my own for mentioning homework on a Saturday, and at a party no less.

"Well, it was good talking with you Hermione," she said and then walked away to join in with a few girls who were giggling about Harry.

He was sitting alone on the couch in front of the fireplace, mindlessly throwing wads of parchment into the fireplace. Every once in a while he would look up and glance over by the window and the return to throwing the parchment, each time he did so, it was with even more force than the last time he looked over there. I followed his eyesight, and realized just what or who, was at the source of his misery. Of course I should have realized when Parvati told me that Ginny and Dean hooked up that Harry would be in the same boat as me. Why hadn't I thought of it earlier to talk to him? Surely he would understand how much it hurt.

I walked over to him and sat down, tearing off a small portion of his parchment and wadding it up. The two of us sat there for a bit, neither of us saying anything, just the sound of shredding paper connecting us. If it were Ron that I was sitting next to, the silence would drive him insane, even though the common room was anything but silent. He always seemed to think that someone had to be doing or saying something.

Harry leaned into me and bumped my shoulder with his before leaning back into his spot as if nothing had happened. I smiled a bit and leaned myself into him, hitting him slightly harder than he had done to me. He tipped to his side and a smile flashed across his face. I had to admit that in that moment I realized just how striking Harry actually was. There was a twinkle in his eyes, and the fire light danced across his face, and it was one of the few moments that I couldn't sense the chip that was almost always present on his shoulder.

"What does it feel like Harry," I asked him, "when you see Dean kissing Ginny?"

"Probably about how it felt for you to see Ron and Lavender's display."

"You noticed that." I flushed.

"Hermione, you had been right next to me when it happened, how was I not supposed to notice?"

"I guess. Well, if it's any consolation, I don't think that they will last," I told him, trying to cheer him up.

"Who, Ron and Lavender? Me neither."

"No, Harry, Ginny and Dean, I don't think that they'll last. They're not meant to."

"I just don't want to see her hurt. I mean, she's Ron's sister," he began.

"Harry, she's not just Ron's sister. It's alright if you like her, I'm sure that Ron would understand." He sighed and went back to throwing balled up bits of parchment into the fire, not saying another word. "I think I'm going to call it a night Harry. You did great today," I spoke to him quietly as I got up from my spot.

"Thank you Hermione,"Harry called to me.

I nodded and gave him a small smile before walking up the steps to the sixth year girls' room. I felt a little better now after talking with Harry, and as bad as it may have seemed, I was kind of glad that I wasn't the only one who felt this way tonight. And in a strange way, it was nice to know that even Harry Potter could feel this way sometimes. It served as a reminder that even the people that are usually held to higher standards deal with the same pain. That thought of course brought me back to my earlier thoughts about Malfoy. Most people suspected that he didn't feel anything at all. However, after tonight, I knew that something was able to get under his skin and break him down; I just didn't know what that was. But it made me wonder, had he too felt loves cruel sting this evening?

The room was empty when I entered it and the silence was a nice reprieve from the chaos that flooded the common room. I plopped down on my bed and looked around at the mess that my roommates had left it in. Lavender's bed was a mess of makeup and clothes, and the trunk that was at the foot of her bed had its contents strewn about. Parvati's was nearest to the door and in a similar state of disarray as Lavender's, though hers was contained to just a small portion of her bed. Mine was neat and organized. Everything had their own place; even my nightstand was placed exactly so, making sure that it was within arm's reach. The last two beds were pushed up against each other, creating one large bed. Those belonged to Sarah and Lisa. The two of them were always together, even before they came to Hogwarts, and many people suspected that they were in a relationship as they could be seen holding hands throughout the castle. But none of us knew for sure. Even after sharing a dorm with them for the past six years, I could only hazard a guess as to the true nature of their friendship.

I fell back onto my bed and tried to fall asleep, but sleep evaded me. All I could see were the pink rimmed eyes of Draco Malfoy or the moment that Lavender threw herself onto Ron, and neither of those thoughts were conducive of sleep. I wasn't sure how long I had lain there, replaying the evening's events through my mind, before a noise from the doorway caught my attention. I looked up, hoping that it was anyone but Lavender, and sighed in relief when Sarah and Lisa barged through the door. They were giggling about something and slightly leaning into each other, as if they were each trying to hold the other up from all of their laughing, and I couldn't help but envy them. There they were without a care in the world, even though the whole school thought that they were together, and sometimes I even thought that they just played along with it just for fun. So how was it that even they could be happy but I was miserable? Was the toll of books and cleverness to be alone, to have no one who truly understood you the way that it seemed these two girls understood each other? No, I refused to believe that knowledge was an undesirable trait. Maybe it was just one that few were undeterred from, making the connection an even deeper and more satisfying one. Because what could be more satisfying than sharing your knowledge with another person and learning theirs in return? It had been with these thoughts that I was finally able to slip into sleep, dreams of a man who would someday understand my passion and thirst for knowledge.


End file.
